It’s days before I get to see Joe. We seem to have drifted out of being friends without even noticing. Often he doesn’t wait for me after school or reply when I leave him messages or call him. I don’t think he’s even living at home, but I don’t see him to ask and Raven’s not saying. Today, though, I pin him down. I collar him at lunchtime and tell him he’s meeting me on the pier, tomorrow. No arguments. He doesn’t say no, but he doesn’t sound thrilled either. In the end he says yes, just to get rid of me, I think.
I go to meet him, determined things will go well, and despite the cold I’m feeling happy. Tiny chips of snow are whirling around in the wind, but it doesn’t matter. I figure we can spend the whole day together, maybe go out later to a club and reconnect somewhere liquid and noisy. Then, as I make my way down the boards, I see he’s not alone. He’s standing with another lad, their backs to the people passing by, their heads together. I come up and stand behind them until Joe looks round and sees me. ‘Hey,’ he says.
‘Hey.’
‘This is Toby – my friend. I’m staying with him; he walked down with me.’
I stop. ‘Okay, right.’ It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask whether he needs help feeding himself now as well, but I bite it back.
‘Shall we get some chips?’ Toby says, looking bored, and I wait for Joe to say no, that’s okay because he and I are going, but he doesn’t.
‘Sure,’ he says, ‘why not – you want some, Coo?’
I do, but I say no, and then have to queue up while they get theirs and eat them in front of me, leaning over the side of the pier to throw bits for the gulls to catch. I may as well not be there, and I know Toby wishes I wasn’t. He doesn’t ask me a thing, just carries on a conversation with Joe while his long fingers sketch something in the air, almost hitting me in the face. I look at Joe – hard – but he seems to be avoiding my gaze so I retreat behind a wall of silence which he tries to break by including me in the discussion.
Toby doesn’t even try, and soon Joe’s tension is stretched between us like a rubber band ready to snap. Finally it does.
‘Where’s your friend today?’ Toby asks me, lifting one eyebrow like a bad actor. ‘Joe says you hang around with some odd people – got a thing for tramps, is it?’
I’m about to say that he seems pretty odd to me. It’s obvious that the black hair isn’t his own, with ginger roots showing at parting and ears, and his Welsh accent is the whiny kind that I can’t stand. I catch Joe’s eye, but though he must realise that things are bad, he’s grinning! He actually thinks the idiot is funny.
‘Joe should know better than to talk about private things,’ I say. ‘Joe should remember who his friends really are rather than – whoever you are.’
As a riposte it’s pathetic, and that just makes it worse. Toby’s lip lifts in a sneer that makes me want to hit him, and Joe does nothing, only scratches his head and looks from one of us to the other. ‘Coo,’ he says at last, ‘it wasn’t like that. Toby – why did you say that?’
I walk away fast, back down the pier past the stupid people with their candyfloss in midwinter, their silly kissy faces and their stupid brats. Past the daft girls all painted up in lipstick and badly applied eye shadow for hideous boys who only want one thing.
‘Hey, watch it!’ one shouts as I push my way past her. I glare daggers back, begging her to say one more thing, but then she’s gone and there’s only the blood roaring in my ears and salt on my face. I go to the place I know would annoy Joe most, not that he’ll even know. I go to the most honest person I know.